


Charleston; Meet Charles

by Ithika, Meglifluous



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Charleston (Location), Explosions, Gen, Season 2, canon reimagined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meglifluous/pseuds/Meglifluous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail Ashe, resourceful, tenacious, young and in love, escapes her father's protective care with a mind of returning to the pirates that sail under the banner of Captain Flint. However, Charleston is already under siege, and the captain she sought is not the one she encounters, but Charles Vane, her erstwhile captor. For his part, Captain Vane has the same goal he always does: survive by any means necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I : ABIGAIL

**Author's Note:**

> This collaborative work started life as a roleplay on Tumblr between [MissAbigailAsh](http://www.missabigailash.tumblr.com) and [OfTheRanger](Http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com), a "What if" constructed out of a desire to find an exciting new scenario for our muses to interact in, and what better place than Charleston? 
> 
> As this grew in size and complexity (accommodating the appearance of [Captain Flint](http://www.bornofsuchdarkthings.tumblr.com)), and owing to the difficulty of following threads backwards on Tumblr, we decided to share the work here. 
> 
> We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it!

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://missabigailash.tumblr.com/) ✕

Getting away from her father’s men had been easier than she’d anticipated. It hadn’t been a dashing escape—the ruse about needing to relieve herself off the side of the thoroughfare had actually been closer to mortifying—but it had been so effective that for all Abigail knew, the military escort was still standing there on the road to Savannah with his back to the tree line. Even if he and the carriage driver were looking for her, though, they probably wouldn’t guess that she was heading right back into town. Especially not once the cannon fire had started.  

It had to be the Spanish warship. Did that mean that she was already too late, and Captain Flint was dead, his crew retaliating? Or did it mean that he had somehow escaped her father’s guards, as she had, and gotten back on board to avenge Mrs. Barlow?  _Please_ , Abigail prayed,  _let it be the latter_. 

She still found it hard to believe that Miranda was gone—beautiful, brilliant, vibrant and righteous Miranda, effectively erased from the world with one finger twitch by the despicable Colonel Rhett. Her title as Lady Hamilton had been stripped, her husband was long dead, she had no children, the man who loved her still was about to be—or perhaps already had been—executed…Abigail hadn’t even thought to write about her in her journal. 

Thinking of the book she’d left with the boatswain made Abigail’s cheeks burn. It had been an odd, impulsive gesture—the Captain seemed to take it as a sign of her properly identifying the need to leave such a thing on board, but Billy…he’d looked surprised when she had thrust it directly into his large, beautiful hands, swallowing the way he always did when she gaped at him too long. For just a moment, his hand had brushed against hers as he had accepted the heavy tome—remembering that slight touch still made her blush and tremble with pleasure. Would he read it? If he read it, would he understand? That her beliefs about piracy had shifted was clear enough, but would he comprehend that it was his voice, his soft frown, his breath-taking blue eyes—his utter undeniability as a living, breathing, thoughtful, moral and good person—that had erased the concept of monsters from her mind more than anything else? Would he guess that she loved him? 

Abigail balled her fists and forced herself to exhale. She was being foolish again. It happened every time she thought of Billy Bones. The boatswain didn’t need her right now. Not the way her Captain did.   

 _Her_ Captain. Was there no end to the irrational thoughts now clouding her mind? As she continued walking toward the town—brows furrowed, dark hair slipping from its holds and her feet beginning to blister and ache—Abigail reminded herself that she was not a pirate. A pirate would have a plan for rescuing Captain Flint, not just some ill-conceived compulsion to do so. A pirate would have crew-mates at her side. A pirate would be wearing more sensible shoes. No, she was not a pirate, she was not going to marry a pirate (unless somehow she and Billy were reunited and _–good god, Abigail, stop thinking about him!_ ) but she did need to save a pirate. She willed herself to walk faster. 

A nearby explosion warned her that she was getting close. The very ground was shaking. From a distance the canon fire had seemed exhilarating and Abigail had thought herself brave rather than foolish to run toward it. As she got closer, though, she began to grow afraid. The noise was astonishing and the panic palpable. Buildings were collapsing, people were screaming, the air was filled with the scent of smoke and blood and there was no sense that it would ever stop. Was this the end of Charleston? Did she care? There was a part of her, a growing part of her, which very much wanted to see it burn.

She had reached the outskirts of town and the next blast came so close it stopped her in her tracks. Instinctively she dropped into a crouch and covered her head. A storefront to her left had shattered into a burst of glass and wooden shards. When she dared to look up again, it was as if the entire street she had been walking down had magically dematerialized. Her ears were ringing and the left side of her dress was covered in soot.  Bloody splinters marred the pale flesh of her arm. With a small tremor of terror, Abigail realized that she’d been so consumed with worry over Captain Flint’s fate, she had forgotten to take into account her own. A glance to the west confirmed that the governor’s mansion was still standing, but for how long? James McGraw wasn’t the only one in mortal danger. So was she, and so was her father. So was every living person in the city. 

Brushing a falling stray of hair off her face, Abigail was startled to notice a familiar form moving swiftly and with great purpose through the chaos. She recognized him instantly despite the complete incongruity of his presence in this place and her heart leapt with a strange kind of joy and relief, as if seeing an old friend. But what on earth was Pirate Captain Charles Vane doing running through Charleston with a sword? She noticed his hands were chained as he sliced through a city guard, the irons around his wrists apparently no real impediment to his swordsmanship. _But who would chain a pirate and then give him a weapon_ , Abigail wondered absurdly.  _No, no—he **took**  the weapon. He’s escaping something. As are we all. _

She was about to call to him when she noticed a colonial soldier directly to her right taking cowardly aim at him with a pistol from behind a large pile of rubble. Abigail wasn’t sure the soldier was at close enough range to do the Captain any real harm, but nor was she sure he wasn’t. What was clear was that Vane’s attention was on yet another city guard coming at him with sword raised, and the craven solider was willing to risk that man’s life to get a cheap shot at Charles. Not that that man’s life was likely to last for more than a second or two longer in any case, but that was not Abigail’s concern. 

Noticing a splintered board at her feet, she snatched it up and swung it with all her might at the back of the soldier’s head, fully expecting him to go down. Though the blow did take him by surprise, the soldier turned to her with confusion, pain and amazement in his eyes, very much still conscious and alive, a thin trickle of blood emerging from his nose.  _I’m not strong enough_ , Abigail thought desperately.  _That must change_.  

“Miss?” The soldier stammered, eyes widening as he confirmed that her small hands were, indeed, clutching the object that had clocked him. He looked a little bit like a younger Colonel Rhett. “Miss, I’m on your side—”

 _No,_  thought Abigail, closing her eyes.  _This is not my side. Not anymore_. She swung the board again, this time hitting the soldier full in the face. When she opened her eyes again she saw that the soldier had fallen back against the rubble, bloody and unmoving, his eyes open but unseeing. She dropped the board, ignoring the discomfort in her palms, and felt suddenly that she couldn’t breathe. What was she doing? And why was she doing it in a corset? Remembering the Captain, she glanced up and froze.

He had noticed her now, his blue eyes assessing her coolly. Did he recognize her? He must; perhaps if she were clean and tidy he wouldn’t have made the connection, but she must by now look almost exactly as she did when he first encountered her; dirty, dazed and very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. The second guard lay dead at his feet as the city continued to explode around him. He looked so alive, so indomitable. Abigail took a step toward him, eager to exchange news and collaborate on a more informed course of action. He was strong and skilled and had never lied to her about anything—exactly the kind of person with whom one could weather a crisis such as the one in which she now found herself. 

And then she remembered, and stopped. 

They had not parted on good terms, and that was perhaps an understatement. This man was not her friend, he had been her captor. And she had betrayed him when she had allowed Eleanor Guthrie to lead her out of the New Providence Island fort. There had been a great deal of money at stake for him then and also something else, something he had seemed to be even more upset about losing, something about Eleanor herself. He had told them that their actions had put him in grave danger, that his men would hold him responsible for her escape, that they were signing his death warrant. Observably, such had not come to pass, but what had? Was she someone he now felt he must expunge? He had assured her of her safety as long as she had done exactly what he asked of her, and in the end, she had not. 

Abigail’s eyes darted again to the west, but this time she could not locate her father’s mansion. Maybe it was gone, maybe everything was gone. Her bottom lip quivered as she turned back to Vane, meeting his gaze. If he was going to extract vengeance, then that was what was going to happen, there was nothing she could do to stop him. The man had beheaded Ned Lowe, he could make her death quick if he so chose. Perhaps that was the best thing to hope for. She forced herself to lift her chin, determined to be brave, but then remembered the touch of Billy’s hand. Tears sprang into her dark brown eyes. 

God, how she so very much wanted to live.


	2. II: VANE

✕ Written by [Ithika](http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com) ✕

The plan had worked about as well as he’d hoped - his reputation had appealed to the hubris of the Charleston officials, and they’d allowed him to say his piece to the throng, the idea of putting not one but two of the region’s most infamous pirates to trial and then the noose being too enticing for them to pass over, as he’d expected.

True, cold steel against his wrists was not at all a sensation he relished, and the haunting, all-too familiar weight of them - to say nothing of the chain that bound his arms - hampered his movements, slowing every action and reaction, though thankfully not enough yet to cause him any real injury. Why the chain was so long - long enough to choke the life from a man, long enough for him to swing a blade - was a mystery, but one he’d been grateful for since the moment he’d been bound.

He’d lost Flint in the moments after the Man ‘o War had first opened fire - the other captain had rage and blood in his eyes and Charles was not about to prevent him from cutting his vengeance from the Governor, but that didn’t mean that he would stand about and watch. His own problems had materialised in the unsettling guise of guards with muskets, the long-nosed weapons more than enough to convince Vane to take his chances in the warren-like backstreets and  _run_. It’s not a question of courage or cowardice when there are two of them, one of you, and you are bound and armed only with a sword.

It didn’t take him long to find his rhythm. Despite the awkwardness of the chain and manacles, he found chain more than long enough to serve as a garrotte, or even to bind a fist for bone-shattering punches. He wanted them gone, and gone as soon as possible, but they weren’t the hindrance he’d first feared. And so it was that he was grinning as he danced with this latest guardsman, the inexperienced soldier no match at all for the pirate with his lifetime of blood and steel and complete disregard for honour.

As his blade slid eagerly and easily into the guard’s belly and up, up into his vital places, Charles watches the man’s young face blanch with the mortal wound as he drives the blade home. He hadn’t seen it coming, this tidy town guard - he hadn’t been trained for real bloodshed, the pirate assumed. There was nothing clean about the way he fought - the way he had ever fought, and he is still grinning as the fight and focus leaves his combatant’s hazel eyes, their faces brought close together in a warrior’s embrace.

He hears a  _crack_  as he releases the body, wiping his blade on a bright red coat, and he turns, blade pointed to the source of the sound. And wasn’t  _that_  a surprise.  

Of all the people he’d expected to see standing over a body, she hadn’t even been on the list. Back in Nassau Fort, it was true the little noblewoman had impressed him with her savage pleasure at the news of Low’s demise, but this was something else. The path between being glad for a death and orchestrating one should be longer, it seemed, for a governor’s daughter. But there she was, a little bloodied and soot-blackened, looking like she didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Cold blue eyes leave her surprising figure for a moment, studying the corpse she’d made. Judging by the pistol and the man’s position, she’d just saved his life, like as not.  No matter what she’d written in that journal, and no matter what rage she’d shown at the fort, this was so surprising as to be shocking.  

He’s listening to the town burn and break around them as he watches her, waiting to see what she’d do.  She takes a single step towards him, and it seems something unnerves her in that moment as she stops, gaze turning to something far more befitting the eyes of a young girl staring down the man who had been her captor. But then she looks away, looking for some landmark in the direction he and Flint had fled from, the fear changes to resolve, and he finds himself again impressed beyond expectation.

The men waiting on the Man o’ War are not idly sitting at their posts out on the water, and a canon ball shrieks through the air, biting into the side of a nearby building with terrible, cacophonous force, sending plaster dust and timber shrapnel flying through the dusty air, just a few scant metres from where they two were standing, and Vane finds himself shaken from his stunned reverie.

_In all likelihood, the girl’s father is dead by now_ , are his thoughts as he quickly closes the distance between them. Or at least - that’s what he would have caused to happen, were he Flint, and the two of them were similar enough. He’s facing her, a footstep away, her dark eyes brimming with tears. Tears, and something much harder than that, the proud set of her chin reminding him of -  _This is not the time to think of **her**  - the girl is not likely to fetch a ransom of any kind now, but she did save my life._ He makes the decision in seconds, a handful of heartbeats he’s staring at her, mouth set in a hard line, teeth grinding away, all too aware of the danger of standing in one place overlong.

He looks at the fallen soldier again, and his brow is raised as he looks back at her, expression not disapproving, perhaps a trace of amusement behind his eyes. “I appreciate that.” Canon fire once again causes the earth to tremble beneath his feet, and his expression hardens once again - not that it had been much softer to begin with. “I wouldn’t keep going the way you’re headed, if I were you. This town will be rubble before we’re done.” He looks back towards the water once more, judging the distance - it is not so very far. “If you intend to throw your lot in with us,” and he can’t imagine why she would, but she was here, “and you can keep up with me, follow.”

“I could use a pair of eyes to watch my back.” 

 


	3. III: ABIGAIL

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://missabigailash.tumblr.com/) ✕

Abigail blinked rapidly, as much from shock as to clear the tears that had begun welling in her eyes. The fierce pirate captain was now practically toe to toe with her and speaking with the same flat, honest calm that had characterized the distinct gravel of his voice back in Nassau. Staring into Captain Vane’s narrowed eyes—another lovely shade of blue, how had she not noticed that before? Lighter than Billy’s, but equally arresting. Did all pirates have ocean-stained stares?—she flinched rather than ducked as another canon ball came screaming through the sky, careening into the side of a building just meters from them. It wasn’t that she was getting used to the deafening destruction, it was that she was so grateful for and excited by the actual words Vane was using –  _we, us, follow, watch_  – that a lovely, warm calm had begun to settle over her, stilling her trembling form.

He was not going to kill her. He didn’t even seem angry—not at her, at least. To the contrary, he had expressed gratitude and was inviting her to join him; he even had a job for her to do. It was a simple job, to be sure—just another pair of eyes, just watching the back of a man who missed nothing—but the second he uttered them, Abigail understood the truth she had been grasping at for days, the reason her “ordeal” – as her father insisted on calling it – was slowly proving to be more galvanizing than traumatizing. 

It was simply that before Mr. McGraw had explained his plan and her part in it, before Captain Vane had quietly offered her the chance to accompany him and help him watch for adversaries, no one had ever, in her entire fifteen years of life, had anything for her to do. Not a single blessed thing. Before her death, Abigail’s mother had lovingly scolded her to sit quietly or stop fidgeting or “put down that book,” and since then her father had sometimes written vague, inexplicit instructions to her in his letters such as “study well,” or “be good,” but there had never been an actual need for her, never any context in which her life had had the slightest bit of meaning. Daughter, eventual wife and mother. Those were the only roles London or Charleston had ever imagined for her. Since being kidnapped by the maniac Low, she’d been a ransom, a captive, a fugitive, a political pawn, a writer, a witness, an ambassador, and now, an accomplice and a lookout. Yes, she still had nightmares about Low himself, with his terrible dead eye and sneering countenance, but when she woke from them, a hand fluttering instinctively to her throat, she remembered that she was alive and that he—well, he had been separated from his head, hadn’t he? And all was right with the world.  

Another canon blast reminded her that Ned Low’s beheading aside, the world was still quite wrong. Vane already had his back to her, moving expeditiously toward the bay, and Abigail had a moment to study him. When he had first introduced himself to her in the fort, he had seemed the most exotic man she had ever seen, his long, braided hair, sharp, lean features and exposed sun-browned skin as foreign to her as the sand-covered, tropical paradise he called home. She knew she should be afraid of him, but such a response seemed almost futile. He was beyond terrifying, he was lethal. When in his presence, she would live or die at his whim; that had to be accepted as fact. Although perhaps “whim” was unfair—she had no doubt he had reasons for the actions he took, always. Watching him now, she found him hearteningly familiar; it was the powdered wigs and measured manners and choking collars favored by cultured men that no longer made sense to her. As she had with Mr. McGraw, once she came to trust him, she felt not just safe near Captain Vane, but safer. To men like her father, she was an afterthought, an inconvenience at worst and a trifling if agreeable presence at best.  The pirate captains, by contrast, seemed to judge her by complex evaluations of her worth, including her in their plans. It felt so much safer to be in actual physical danger, yet seen, than to be tangibly secure, but invisible, that Abigail wondered how she could ever have considered any other life.  

Flooded with a relief and appreciation she could never have explained with words, she rushed at the captain’s back, rising to her tiptoes to throw her arms around his broad shoulders. “Thank you, Captain,” she whispered into his muscular neck, ignoring the unyielding rigidity of his body in response to her touch. She released him as quickly as she’d grabbed him and set her mind to more practical matters.

“Have you seen Mr. Mc—Captain Flint?” she asked, turning and crouching by the body of the soldier to her left.  It felt important to her to use James’ proper name when discussing him with her father, so as to remind him of the friend he had betrayed, but with everyone else, it was no doubt safer to stick with his title. “My father was going to have him executed in the square. Unjustly.”

She pried the pistol out of the soldier’s unmoving hand, confident Captain Vane could teach her how to use it and hopeful that brandishing it until he had had the chance to do so would at least give would-be assailants pause. The soldier’s skin was already cooling and after recoiling from the unnatural feel of it, Abigail made herself look at his eerily still face, his sightless green eyes. _My first kill_ , she thought, studying the prone body.  _But not my last_. Frowning softly, she reached out and closed the soldier’s eyes, as she’d seen her father’s men do with Mrs. Barlow. And then she rose and hurried after Vane, once again silently cursing her awful, pinching shoes and doing her best to watch for trouble, and also for Colonel Rhett.

He was the next man she intended to slay. 


	4. IV: VANE

✕ Written by [Ithika](http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com/) ✕

Glad for his unlikely companion, Vane focuses on the path to the water - and Flint - able to relax his guard somewhat now that he has the benefit of another pair of eyes. Despite the ease with which he’d dispatched his opponents so far, he was all too painfully aware of the disadvantage he was at, bound as he was, and the girl had shown remarkable gumption. That she actually had it in her to kill a man was remarkable. That she would do it to save his life,  _his_  of all peoples’, that was curious.  
  
These thoughts play out quietly in the back of his mind as he scans the clearing, waiting for the girl to follow.  Whenever they meet the tear and soot-stained faces of fleeing, terrified townsfolk, his eyes scan them apathetically and move on, uninterested in their distress and concerned only with assessing and removing threats. These men and women would have jeered and laughed as he’d swung from the gallows, would have taken their children to throw rotting fruit at the spectacle they would willingly have made of his corpse, and so he is as unmoved by their plight as that of the occasional distraught horse or yelping dog that gallops by - less, in fact, as no beast had ever taken joy in the death of a pirate.  

A sudden weight on his back sends a lance of adrenaline coursing through him, and he is about to bring his weapon over his shoulder when he realises the weight is too light, the grip too soft. This is not an attack, merely the attention of an appreciative teenage girl. The embrace is over near as suddenly as it began, her emphatic whisper ringing in his ears. He’d forgotten that she was so _young_ , forgotten what teenage girls were like - and he turns, grabbing her roughly by the upper arm, pulling them both up against the wall of a nearby building, stopping only when his back brushed against the cool whitewash. He was not about to be killed or captured because a girl discovered that she was grateful to be in his company.   
  
He’d thought he’d seen movement as he’d turned to face her, but it was just another fleeing dog, the large hound’s long legs carrying it swiftly away from the source of the canonfire. He’s still got hold of her arm as he glances around them, and when he does release her it’s only after he has made sure her back is to the wall, as well.  _Thank you, Captain_. His expression is not gentle as he looks down at the startled girl, but it never is. “Thank me when you reach the water. And I’ll thank  _you_  to pay attention.”   
  
The question brings a wry smile to his lips as he continually surveys their surroundings, his hands restlessly turning the handle of his crude sword as he listens. Looking sidelong down at her, “Who do you think orchestrated all this?” is his sardonic response. Of course, all that the girl knew of him was that he had been her captor, and that he would not send her to Flint of his own volition. She had no reason to expect that he had aimed to assist the other captain, that he cared whether he lived or died. Ordinarily, this was true.  
  
Eyes return to the work of scanning the streets, but an eyebrow raises in mute approval at the word _unjustly_. “I couldn’t allow that to happen. And here we are.” The bombardment is relentless, explosions and shuddering impacts a constant in the town, but for a moment the street is empty of living people but for the two of them, and Charles watches as the girl first retrieves the flintlock and then tenderly closes the eyes of the man she’d killed. It is a strange moment of civility in the chaos, a ladylike gesture surrounded by death and ruin, and he knows beyond all doubt that he is her  _first_. A strange thing to witness, that moment. He remembered his first, and he had spared no human moments then.  
  
His back is turned and he is stalking away by the time she rises, once more falling into the instinctive stooped stance of a man who knows he is hunted, although he is cautious to keep his pace manageable for the girl - so long as doing so does not endanger his life. She catches up to him with satisfying speed, and as he spies the way she brandishes the pistol he pulls them into cover again, scanning the street for soldiers before turning his attention to her.   
  
Confident fingers remove the flintlock from her grip, turning it and inspecting the parts - there was a spot of blood on the fizzen, likely from its last owner, and he suspects it will not fire. But that only makes it slightly less reliable than they normally are, and he folds it back into her hand. As he does so he adjusts her grip on the weapon without a second thought, so that her wrist is stronger and her fingers don’t rest haphazardly on the trigger. “Do not fire this.” There are many reasons for this - the chance of misfire, their aim is exceptionally bad, the recoil. But there’s no time for explanations, and he looks at her for only a second before his eyes drift behind her again, hand hurriedly finding the knife he’d pulled from a soldier he’d felled.  
  
The knife is an ugly, utilitarian thing, the blade brutish and square, wooden handle lacking all ornament. And the blade is bright and clean, for even in times like this Vane had found time to wipe it once the deed was done, but the metal guard and wooden handle are grimy, tacky with dirt and mostly-dried blood. Holding it by the blade, he hands it to her. “Use this, if you have to. Throat, thigh or gut.”   
  
He’s watching her take the blade when movement catches his eye in the street behind her, and as he brings the man into focus, sees the pistol so like the one she’s carrying aimed at them, he shoves her down and towards the wall as he bursts past her - no point in trying to dodge round shot. The roar of gunpowder is deafening as always, and the round pellet hits the dirt harmlessly beside him, the distance of a handful of metres too much for either the weapon or its operator, and Charles has already closed half the distance, already seen that the soldier was alone - already regretted that the knife was with the girl and his sword was at his belt.   
  
The manacles meant drawing his belted weapon would be too slow, but luckily for the pirate, the soldier was fumbling with his weapon when the captain reaches him, and then it is too late. The captain closes the last metres between them at a lunge, grabbing his ill-prepared opponent by the middle and bearing the two of them to the ground. The fight is brief - Vane manages to get his chain over the head of the smaller, younger man almost immediately, and using the chain to cut off his air is easy, adrenaline lending his movements strength and fury, and the man dies with very little cost to Vane, who is breathing heavily as he returns to the girl.  
  
He draws his sword as he approaches her - tucking it into his belt had been a grave mistake, and he was lucky that it had not cost him his life - and he nods for her to follow as he continues past her, looking once more for his erstwhile companion. “I’m not leaving without Flint,” he growls, his voice deep and low. “He can’t have gotten far.”

 


	5. V: ABIGAIL

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://missabigailash.tumblr.com/) ✕

They won’t look at her. 

The people fleeing the chaos of the cannon fire are half blinded by panic but they occasionally acknowledge one another with sympathetic glances or horrified utterances. They know they are a  _we_  under attack by a  _them_. If they see Captain Vane, clearly  _them_  and clearly unconcerned with their fate, they blanch and recoil and flee, but they don’t seem to see Abigail at all. She’s become invisible. 

She glances down at the skirts of her dress, the black embroidered grey-blue silk now soiled with soot and blood. Is she that much dirtier than everyone else? Is it that she’s in the pirate’s shadow? Or is it that they can tell, somehow, that she’s left their company? Does she perhaps now look like a murderess? Can everyone around her comprehend her iniquity, her  _themness_? Is it written all over her? 

She realizes that Captain Vane has his hand tight around her upper arm only a second before feeling wood behind her back. Her attention darts to the gun in her hand as he gruffly fixes her grip on the thing while admonishing her not to use it, but when he glances down into her eyes for the merest second, she can tell that he is still fully aware of her; considering her, protecting her, allowing her actions to influence his opinion of her. And what he wants her to do is pay attention.

 _Pay attention_. She’s trying to do just that but the cannons will not stop whistling through the air and blowing holes through her concentration.  She is stunned, too, by his answer to her question about Captain Flint.  _That’s_  what he’s doing in this place? He came to rescue his—what? Friend? That doesn’t sound right. Weren’t they fighting over her custody back in Nassau? Colleague, then? How is it that her father, supposedly an actual ally of James McGraw and supposedly a man of great civility and reason saw fit to preside over his public execution while Charles Vane, supposedly his rival and supposedly a savage, remorseless brute saw fit to rescue him?  She is wondering if anything she has ever been taught has had even the slightest bit of truth to it when the pirate Captain hands her another object, a small, plain belt knife. She takes the dirty handle in her free hand as he instructs her where to aim it and clutches it tightly, like a talisman, her hand so small and white it looks inadequate even to her. Do people really kill with such things? It seems too small. If one were to thrust it into someone else, one would be practically touching them. Their blood would surely seep out over one’s hand. The thought is repugnant until she begins to imagine  _specific_  someones.  Rhett. Low. That awful headmaster from her school in London with his pinching fingers and whisky breath. She could stab those men.  _Think about those men. Do not start wondering about the one you killed, his family or companions. They’re likely all dead by now, there will be no suffering._

 _And pay attention!_  “…Throat, thigh or gut.”  _Throat, thigh, gut. Throat, thigh, gut_. Abigail is trying to commit the instructions to memory when Vane pushes her down and back suddenly, springing past her into action. He moves like a panther, quick and silent, muscles rippling. How many times has he done this? Has Miss Gutherie seen him do this? Ever observant, Abigail had not for one moment been fooled by Eleanor’s silence in the pirate’s presence. She’d seen her hesitate at the gate when he’d asked her to come back to his side of it, noticed the halting, broken steps the older girl had taken across the sand once they were free of the fort. She loved him, and had hurt him for Abigail’s sake. Or perhaps for Flint’s. In any case, Abigail felt she owed them both a debt. She was starting to owe many people debts, and none of them were her family.  Looking past Vane to find the object of his interest, Abigail sees a soldier about to fire a pistol very much like the one in her right hand. She gasps, terrified of seeing the Captain go down right there in front of her, but the shot hits the dirt behind him and for just a moment she can see the panic on the young soldier’s face as he desperately tries to ready a second one. Ashamed of herself, Abigail turns her face away as Vane lunges at him. She’s already seen so much death today.

 _No. Pay attention_. Brows furrowed and lips slightly parted, Abigail forces herself to turn back and watch. There are things to learn here, things she must know as a  _them_. The two men are on the ground, the pirate captain using the very chain these people have bound him with to choke the life out of the soldier. He’s frighteningly strong—can anyone really be that strong? Or is this the blood lust she’s heard so much about lending power to his violence? She tries to watch the soldier’s face as he dies but it becomes red and ugly and she feels a vague hysteria rising in her throat. She knows she is going to cry later, but not now, not in the middle of this thing she ran willingly into.  

Vane rushes back at her side, sword drawn and chest rising and falling with exertion, a small moon-shaped cut across one cheek. “I’m not leaving without Flint,” he growls, his voice deep and low. “He can’t have gotten far.”

Flint’s alive! And nearby. Abigail looks around, eyes tearing slightly from the smoke. She sees a dog scurrying inland and her heart goes out to it. It must be so scared. Her eyes drop to the weapons in her hands and she begins to worry over her own sanity.  She’s feeling more sympathy for the animals than the people. Is she turning into a pirate, or just going mad?

A voice directly behind her startles her out of her reverie. So much for paying attention.

“What the hell is  _she_  doing here?”

She turns and beams, relieved beyond words to see James alive and unharmed, to hear his cultured voice. He is manacled like Charles and breathing hard, his hands and sword covered in blood, but it is clear that no real harm has come to him. His comment is addressed to the other pirate, but when he sees her foolish smile he does a double take and raises a ginger eyebrow at her, utterly stunned. Abigail’s smile softens. She can tell she’s put him in an awkward position, forcing him to straddle the person he’s let her know and the person he must be in the company of other pirates. There must be a way to assure him that she will not betray his confidence. His eyes have moved from her face to the weapons in her hands and from there to the water, absolutely close enough to reach if they can just avoid capture for a handful of seconds more. He barely manages to swing the blade of his sword aside in time to keep from impaling her as she throws her arms around his shoulders.

“Captain Flint!”

With the girl hanging off his neck like a little monkey, Flint turns his frowning attention to Vane, glancing meaningfully at the blood still hot on his sword and then down at the dark head of the girl still clinging to him.

“Abigail,” he asks urgently, still baring his teeth at Vane. “Do you have  _any_ family  _anywhere_?”

The shouts of the men who have been doggedly pursuing him since he left the square grow closer and it seems the girl hears them, for she disentangles herself and blinks up at him.

“You mean besides my father?”

Captain Flint swears under his breath, glares at Vane, and then urges the girl forward, toward the jetty. 

“Keep moving,” he growls.  


	6. VI: VANE

✕ Written by [Ithika](http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com/) ✕

 

There is a moment when he wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Here he stands, manacled, a prosperous English colony burning all around him. In alliance with his most dangerous rival and in company with a little English noblewoman who had saved his life following his failed attempt to ransom her. A little English noblewoman who is joyously embracing said rival, the man covered in what is surely her father’s blood.

He did not know what it was that had drawn Flint to Charleston’s governor like a crow to carrion, but he knew the look in his eyes. He had even seen the displayed body of a woman at the edge of the square, the timing too convenient to be mere coincidence. No, the odds that Abigail’s father was still breathing were slim to none, and Flint’s question confirmed it.

From her embrace, let alone the lightness of her greeting, the girl clearly cannot suspect what Charles does, as clear as it is that she has seen some side of the other captain that Vane had never suspected to exist. The information is committed to memory, although he cannot see a use for it.

Despite the roar of canonfire and the multitude of military men who roam the town, it simply isn’t in him to obey Flint’s growled direction immediately, like some obedient crewman. “She’s been getting blood on her hands,” he rasps in reply to Flint’s initial question. “Seems she’s found a thirst for the life.”

Stopping mid-stride to turn an irritated face back at the other captain, Flint nevertheless grants Vane the satisfaction of a question. “What the fuck are you talking about?” His tone makes it clear that there is no time for this, that they must be moving - and of course Charles agrees, sword turning restlessly in his hands as he recommences his prowl for the water.

As Flint falls in step with him, Abigail trotting to keep up with their long strides, he answers. “Saved my life. Came to find you.” Narrowed eyes watch for Flint’s response to his deliberately succinct explanation even as he continues to scan the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the girl holds the knife in her slender hand more confidently than she had before, and he is pleased.

Much of the town is now emptied of civilians or soldiers. Buildings both meagre and splendid lay in ruin in the wake of the onslaught of the town’s own guns; the crowds that once inhabited them have all but fled these streets nearest the cacophonous source of the destruction.  

They had paused at the corner of a rundown timber building almost at the water, and were about to move on when a snatch of voice on the wind reaches Charles’ ears and he silently reaches out an arm, halting his companions in their tracks. Locking eyes with both of them, he creeps to the corner of the building, back pressed flat against the shabby wall, to determine if he can spy the source of the noise.

Now that he’s paying attention, he can hear several voices not far from the building, and with his stolen glances from his hiding place he’s able to determine there are at least seven of them, in navy uniforms, one of them an officer. He grits his teeth, swallowing a silent curse as he steals his way back to the others.

In a voice low and quiet he recounts what he’s seen to them, gesturing for them to gather closely by the wall of the shack. “Seven soldiers, give or take. They block the path to the water, and there’s an officer, it seems. Longer grey hair, think I saw him at the square.” His teeth grit in irritation as he considers their weapons. “Too many to rush, they’re too well armed. And they’re not town guards, by their look.” When he looks at Flint, perhaps he sees the same frustrated rage as can be seen on his own face now.  
  
He considers Abigail, her expression surprisingly stoic through all of this, and he’s looking at her when next he speaks. “Any suggestions?”

 


	7. VII: FLINT

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://bornofsuchdarkthings.tumblr.com/) ✕

The maelstrom inside of him will not stop sucking in new casualties. If his life is a sea, he’s surprised there’s any water left for it to churn in. Thoughts of all that has been lost must wait; survival is always first, and at present that means escape. But survival, for so long, has been a mere instrument of revenge, and vengeance is at hand again, tucked in the midst of the worst possible threat.

Flint tries to consider Vane’s words impassively, but cannot imagine the officer with long grey hair to be anyone other than Colonel Rhett. Glancing at the girl, he sees that she has arrived at the same conclusion. And, oh jesus, the girl. Is this Peter’s post-mortem reprisal, hanging her around Flint’s neck like an albatross while he yet drips with his freshly spilled blood? Miranda would never forgive him if he doesn’t look out for her. Hell,  _Billy_  will never forgive him if anything she wrote in the back pages of that journal were in any way true. That’s if Billy is still alive, of course. For all Flint knows, Vane’s dark utterance of having come to take the warship means that the maelstrom has sucked down his entire crew, as well. He has no idea what he will find once he finally reboards.  _If_ he finally reboards.  But Flint strongly suspects he will if for no other reason than that life clearly isn’t finished fucking with him yet. Why allow him the respite of death when there are fresh hells to fling him into? 

The girl turns suddenly, thrusting the gun she’s carrying at Vane and turning the small dagger around in her hand so that the blade rests against her forearm, partly hidden by her sleeve. She then darts around the corner so quickly that neither he nor Captain Vane has time to stop her. _That is the thing about the little ones_ , Flint thinks wryly,  _they’re often uncommonly fast_. Vane had said something about her having saved his life, which was surely a joke of some kind, but also about getting blood on her hands. Flint is just starting to wonder what has transpired between them when he hears her voice around the corner, tremulous at first, but rapidly gaining in volume and insistence.

“Help! Help me, somebody, please! The pirate, he pursues me still!”

Flint meets Vane’s eyes and thinks he detects a flash of amusement in them. There is, indeed, an elegant irony at play if the girl has just this moment come to her senses about the company she’s been keeping, but it is not the sort of humor he would expect Charles to appreciate. He remembers Miranda asking once whether or not he counted Vane among the men who would accept a formal pardon for piracy in exchange for the chance to legitimize the self-governance of Nassau. The truth was, he was doubtful on this account, and he had told her so.

“Charles Vane is not like the men of my crew. He’s a different animal entirely. Completely self-made, for one thing, and a pirate to his bones. If there’s any ship waiting outside the island to greet those offering these men clemency, it will be the Ranger, and she will be welcoming them with drawn swords and cannon fire.”   

As if in echo of his thoughts, another cannon ball screams through the city, tearing through buildings as if they were paper. Flint takes advantage of the distraction to push past the other Captain for a glimpse around the building. It is just as Vane has reported; six provincial militiamen and Colonel Rhett, whom Peter’s daughter has grabbed by the arm. She is pulling him urgently toward the lumber building, two of his men close at heel. Rhett is motioning for the other four to climb the jetty ramparts behind him as she continues urging him forward.

“This way, please hurry, I believe he’s injured but I’m so very frightened!”

Suddenly understanding what the girl means to do, Flint forcibly pushes Vane aside. “The officer’s mine, it’s  _personal_. But there are two more with him.” He’s trying as hard as he can not to snap out orders, fully aware that Vane is under no obligation to obey any and unconvinced that he would even if he were.  He can only hope that Charles appreciates the confidence he’s placing in him and the realities of their shared predicament. And the blood lust. If nothing else, Vane should be able to recognize his need to end the Colonel’s life, even without the benefit of explanation, for which there is no time. If there is one thing Flint feels sure that Charles Vane understands, it’s violence.

Within the space of a heartbeat, Colonel Rhett rounds the corner, Abigail having smartly positioned herself behind him at the last possible second. Flint is ready with his sword but not ready for the look of astonishment that crosses the Colonel’s face as the girl suddenly plunges her small hand held dagger into his side. Her eyes are dark and focused, even when the blood starts, her small mouth frowning, and although her hand is shaking, there is no hesitation in her movement. It isn’t enough to end him, but it takes the Colonel’s attention off his revolver for the split second Flint needs to run him through. The girl slashes at Rhett’s gun hand then, perhaps as insurance that he’ll drop the flintlock. Flint doesn’t even have time to be surprised. He’s too busy kicking Rhett’s body off his blade, savoring the sight of his blood, and hoping that between him, Vane and Peter’s oddly—or is it fittingly?—savage  daughter, they have the time and means to dispatch the other two.


	8. VIII: VANE

✕ Written by [Ithika](http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com/) ✕

_“Help! Help me, somebody, please! The pirate, he pursues me still!”_ **  
**

Charles had watched dispassionately as the girl carefully repositioned the knife he’d given her while he recounted what he’d seen to his unusual companions. He paid it little mind, preoccupied as he was by the problem of far too many skilled fighters between them and the safety of the sea. The moment she darts away in a flurry of skirts that are once again laden with dust and dirt he realises those slow, deliberate movements ought to have been given more attention. That the young woman had seen the solution to the problem of the armed men before either himself or Flint did not surprise him as much as it might have. He’d noticed a quiet aggression in the girl since the fort, little moments that reminded him of Anne, back when she was still finding her way around their bloody business. Moments of something fiercer, something admirable.

Eyes that are like in hardness if not in colour lock once the remaining Ashe is out of sight, and Vane finds himself amused despite the mounting peril of the situation. That two of Nassau’s finest had been beaten to a solution by that slight, sheltered creature was enough to bring a twitch of mirth to thin lips, a glint of amusement to ice coloured eyes before he looks back to where the girl had vanished.

He’d opened his mouth to speak when the distinctive, stuttering whistle of shot careening through the air breaks the moment of surprised anticipation between the two men. The acrimonious ball of iron draws from the captains only a slight flinch as it makes its calamitous way through one of the last solid buildings remaining, Flint bursting into action as it passes, shoving Vane roughly aside as he makes to follow the sound of Abigail’s voice. The anger that rises from that rough, unwelcome contact is for once pushed roughly aside - for once not useful - though his lip still curls at the gesture. That is the only outward expression of his pride as he listens to his old rival, recognising the darkness that glitters in his eyes, the thirst for blood and violence. He nods mutely, having no desire to interrupt a need so primal as vengeance.  

“Two for me. Won’t argue with that.”

Leather and steel are smooth in his fist, his weight is even on his feet - it’s this that he thinks of as he waits for the fight, not the challenges of such a mismatch - readiness is the solution for such things. It’s moments only before the grey-haired man appears before them, Abigail trailing so close behind. The Colonel’s eyes widen slightly in surprise as he sees the two grime-smeared convicts lying in wait for him, uninjured, armed and very much on their feet. Vane feels Flint tense in preparation to strike more than sees it, but to both men’s surprise, he doesn’t have time to make the first strike. Abigail, who had trailed so demurely after her target, had shoved the knife he’d given her - the knife she’d so carefully concealed - hard into the Colonel’s soft, unprepared belly with a little grunt of vicious effort. ‘The girl’s a decent listener.’ Vane feels a moment’s grim pride at that as the grey-haired man’s eyes widen still further as he struggles with the reality of what’s unfolding.

These moments of shock are precious things, and Vane spends no more than a handful of heartbeats observing the girl and her victim before surging past both them and Flint, his sword raised as he rushes the nearest of the two remaining militiamen. Forced to take a two-handed grip on his weapon, he manages only to graze the chest of his target. The Colonel’s companions were more battle-hardened than the others the pirate had grappled with about the town, snapping from their shocked stillness as Charles attacks. He snarls - he can’t even tell if the blow drew blood, so quickly did the man jump back from his lunge.

Distantly, he registers the dull thud of a body connecting with the dirt behind him as he watches the two men, neither one of them seeming ready to attack. The man to his right is slightly shorter than Vane, although any advantage the captain might have gained from greater reach is negated by the restricting manacles at his wrists. The soldier lunges at Vane’s left, a resolute grimace on his face as he moves. The pirate jumps away easily, and as he turns his eyes note the way the militiaman’s weight has landed too fully on his right leg as the blow landed in air instead of flesh. With a grunt, Charles turns his dodge into a shove, hip and shoulder connecting hard with his target’s overbalanced body. Vane notices the second man coming for him as the first stumbles heavily, sword point losing track of the captain as he fights to keep his feet.

It’s not enough. Vane brings the pommel of his sword down hard on the back of his combatant’s head, and the man falls with a cry - as if he knows he’s done. It only takes a moment to turn the blade of his sword down, to plunge it hard into the fallen man’s neck. The blade jolts in his hands as it bites against stubborn bone, and when he pulls at first on it, it sticks in the sinewy flesh. These moments bring the remaining soldier - this one greener, to be sure - barrelling into Vane, the force of the impact bringing both men down, the sword finally coming free as it does.

What the man hoped to achieve by bringing them both to the ground like this, Charles can’t tell - he knows only that he’s glad he seemed to have forgotten both his sword and his pistol, seeming gripped with a rage and desire to kill the pirate with his fists. It’s impossible to bring the sword up with the man atop him and his arms bound, and Vane struggles mightily to bring his arms up, head-butting the soldier hard, hoping to stun him, realising with increasing concern that he may not be able to free himself alone.


	9. IX: ABIGAIL

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://missabigailash.tumblr.com/) ✕

 _Murder_. Had you asked her but a month ago, Abigail Ashe, daughter of Lord Peter Ashe, governor or the Carolinas, would have told you that the absolute and immutable line between civilization and lawless piracy was murder. She could not have imagined circumstances in which a proper gentleman might shoot an unarmed lady in the head, or hang a man under false pretense, or send an entire armed militia after one man for trying to rescue another. But all those things had happened, and if both civilization and piracy are soaked in blood, how is one to determine one’s loyalties? One must turn toward the side with a just cause, a steadfast union of men, a common enemy. The cause of the pirates is just; she knows this to be true because the man standing to her left has explained it to her in entirely rational and erudite terms, while her father, representing the other side, told her only lies. The bond of the pirates is steadfast; she knows this to be true because the man standing to her right put aside all personal feelings of enmity to save the man to her left, a man he usually considers his rival. And the enemies of the pirates are indeed her enemies; she knows this to be true because she has just plunged a dagger into the side of one of them, and would do it twenty times over to save either one of the Captains, or even, she is beginning to suspect, simply to pacify the hot rage boiling the blood beneath the surface of her skin.  

Time slows. Blood gushes onto her hand, warm and sticky, a vivid, bright red. She has warned herself this would happen, but the feeling is so raw, so primal, and so terribly unclean that she’s suddenly overawed by it.  She starts to pull her hand away on impulse but then remembers to close her fingers tightly around the hilt of the dagger before tugging it back. It wouldn’t do to leave a weapon behind in a victim, any pirate would know that. And if the choice is between being a lying, idle hypocrite like her father or a vital, clear-eyed liberator like the men beside her now…well,  _the cause of the pirates is just_. 

She hears Captain Vane’s voice behind her, coolly amused. “The girl’s a decent listener.”

Still in slow motion, she glances up at him, wanting to savor the praise, faint though it may be. The world has been so violently unfamiliar these past few days; any suggestion that she might still have a part in it is dearly welcomed. Her brown eyes begin to rise up from under soft, dark lashes, and then the world comes rushing back in again, all at once and through every sense: the smell of gunpowder and burning timber, the shriek of cannons, the wet, tacky warmth of the blood-slick dagger in her hand, the movement and growing threat of the man beside her; her victim who yet lives. She freezes for a second, overwhelmed, feeling more than seeing Captain Vane surge past her toward the next wave of danger. Colonel Rhett is meanwhile turning toward her, his shock quickly giving way to rage.

And then there are two large, manacled, blood-covered hands on her arm, exquisitely gentle as they move her carefully out of harm’s way.  James McGraw’s sea-green eyes graze across her face with such tender apology that she feels alarmed for him, feels worried he is not equipped to survive the approaching fight, feels as though she is glimpsing a ghost.

“Look away,” he commands her quietly as he steps toward Colonel Rhett. But Abigail is so struck by his civility and kindness that her eyes lock onto his actions, and the next thing she knows the heavy iron shackles that bind his wrists have swung up at Colonel Rhett’s face, metal striking the bone of the Colonel’s jawline with brutal ferocity.

He leaps at the Colonel like an animal then, and the face Abigail sees becomes precisely the one she imagined when reading her father’s first letters about the murderous Captain Flint. The Colonel falls backwards as the Captain hastens the descent of his lean frame. As the back of Rhett’s skull smacks hard against the tightly packed earth of the street, Flint snatches up the Colonel’s dropped pistol and straddles the man’s chest with his knees. Abigail gasps as the Captain smashes the back of the gun through the Colonel’s gritting teeth, breaking his face open with monstrous savagery.

Certain she’s in a nightmare, Abigail tries to reconcile the man’s gentle touch with his sudden, heaving violence, realizing with a shock that the same forces are at play within her. One thing is not subdued by the other; indeed they coexist almost by necessity, for only an ocean of love can produce such a tidal wave of hate. Eyes flashing and upper lip pulling back off his teeth in a bestial snarl, Flint shoves a flintlock through the hole he’s made in the Colonel’s jagged, bleeding teeth and fires.

Colonel Rhett’s head detonates like an overripe fruit, the Captain immediately covered in bits of bone and blood and viscera, some of which also explodes across Abigail’s already soiled skirts. Flint looks up then, ferocious and rage-blind, his face half-masked in blood. A cannon ball screeches across the sky to the east of them, and as the Captain rises, moving swiftly toward her, Abigail recoils, ashamed of her own fear.  

 But he dashes past her, toward where Captain Vane wrestles on the ground with an unarmed but enraged militiaman. Abigail takes a small step forward, realizing that she’s not entirely sure what he means to do. Kill the soldier and save Vane? Kill both the soldier and Captain Vane? Continue past them toward the bay? She starts toward the brawl with the alarming concern that she’s going to have to fight back Captain Flint just to allow Captain Vane the chance to get back on his feet when the dagger she’s clutching slips from her slick, reddened fingers. Instinctively she ducks down to retrieve it.

When she looks up again, Flint has the thick chain connecting his manacles pulled taut across the throat of the militiaman and is using it to pull the soldier, choking and sputtering, back up and off of Captain Vane.  _The bond of the pirates is steadfast_.

She should have expected no less.

Abigail turns her attention to the other enigmatic Captain, the one who imprisoned and then later befriended her, and watches him suck in a large breath of air as an arc of space opens up above him.  His ice-blue eyes are lit from within by an indomitable fire; she has never before seen someone so committed to the simple act of being and remaining alive. She takes another step forward and, as Captain Flint continues to wrestle him back, plunges her dagger into the soldier’s thigh. She is probably only in Captain Vane’s way now, but some strange blood lust is upon her, and she must act. After all,  _the enemies of the pirates are her enemies_.

 


	10. X: VANE

✕ Written by [Ithika](http://www.oftheranger.tumblr.com/) ✕

 **AIR**! Suddenly he has it again, lungs greedily sucking in that precious substance the moment pressure was lifted from his throat.  **Air**! His vision had been whiting out, dots dancing before his eyes as the furious young man held him pinned. The boy’s knees had held Charles’ arms prone by his sides, manacle chain constricting painfully across his chest while determined hands attempted to squeeze the life from his throat. **  
**

That first breath is frantic, Vane gasping like a landed fish and his hands raising automatically to soothe his punished throat. Heartbeats pass, and that same wind that gives life to ships reanimates the man, instinct near as primal as breathing guiding strong fingers to grasp the weapon that had lain uselessly by his side only moments ago.

Helplessness is already a distant memory as Charles surges to his feet with the blade, and he sees it is the soldier’s turn to wheeze and struggle as Flint’s capable grip pulls his own irons tight around the boy’s throat. Hands which had moments before seemed fixed about Vane’s neck scrabble frantically at the chain, claw uselessly at Flint’s arms, sleeves, chain again. Legs kick and squirm against the pirate captain’s steadfast weight equally as uselessly as his fumbling fingers. Vane’s eyes are bright as he watches all this, still panting as he draws slowly closer to the struggle - for all he appreciated the help, he didn’t mean to let Flint be the one to end this. 

There is no hot rage, no snarling blood lust in the pirate’s eyes as he advances on the man who’d seemed to come so close to ending him. Only a cold, calm need for steel and satisfaction; a hunger to end the one who had dared to try to end him. A sudden flash of steel in the sunlight accompanied by the swish of a lacy sleeve distracts him, eyes drawn to the girl’s small form darting forward as she plunges her petite blade into a thigh with all the grace of her station. Viper-quick as he’s ever been, Charles catches the soldier’s retaliating fist by a wrist, his eyes afire as they lock with shocked hazel.

“Throat and thigh.” The words are snarled low and close to the young man’s face as his hand tightens painfully over that wrist, Flint’s chains still biting into the tender flesh of his throat. Vane doesn’t turn to look at Abigail, but he continues in that same slow and steady tone, certain that she’d hear and dispassionate at the fear that lances through the eyes locked with his. “They’re good for efficacy. Clean, easy. But gut,” his tone changes not at all as his sword tip effortlessly finds a soft point below the navel, this making the captured soldier squirm and struggle anew against the human bonds that hold him, “That’s slow. Good for  **vengeance**.” It doesn’t take much for the sharp tip of his blood-slick sword to break through fabric and skin, and Vane registers the way the whole body shudders at this steely invasion with a tiny smile that tugs at the corners of his lips.

“And for  **satisfaction**.” This, it seems, is has spoken to the unlucky soldier as the sword slides deeper before being roughly reclaimed, Vane releasing his grip on the mortally wounded man with a look of dismissive disgust.

“Drop him,” though his words still come as a rough growl, there is something less vicious in his tone as his attention turns back to Flint. “We need to move,” he pauses to cough, a hand making it all the way to his throat this time, “before our friends on the water lose all hope of escape.”


	11. XI: FLINT

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://bornofsuchdarkthings.tumblr.com/) ✕

If the fates of James Flint and Charles Vane were intertwined, it was the brotherhood of piracy that had brought them together but violence that kept them bound. Flint had always assumed it was how they understood each other; whether amicable, indifferent, hostile or murderous—and they had been all those things at one point or another over the years—violence was the language they both spoke, their point of intersection. It was what had made him feel, in their earliest meetings, that this man might be a brother, a member of his tribe. Undercurrents of it ran beneath the space they afforded one another during those times when they found it wisest to keep a respectful distance. And it was violence that had divided them after bringing them to a murderous impasse. It had never troubled Flint that he hadn’t managed to kill Charles Vane even after deciding he might have to do so. The other Captain had obviously come to the same conclusion about him, and it had taken a blast from a shotgun to pry them apart. Violence was a current that ran through them both, and Flint had thought that it made them, at least in one small way, alike. 

But even in violence, it seemed, they were not in accord, not truly. Watching Charles Vane kill a man up close had been a revelation. Even  _that_  he did differently. When violence took Flint, it was a fiery eruption of temper. Vane employed violence with ice in his heart; meticulous, cold, untroubled.

They were not speaking the same language after all.     

Still, they were allies in this moment, of that he had no doubt. They would get away together or not at all. Dropping the body of the soldier Vane had run through, he took the girl by her soft, small hand and resumed his press toward the water.  A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Rhett still had four men racing up the jetty ramparts, no doubt toward mounted cannons. Flint was wondering if Peter’s daughter could swim when his eyes came to rest on an empty jolly boat tied to the dock. It would be a risk, of course, but what wasn’t? A glance at Charles—all movement and flashing steel, but surging in that direction like a building wave—suggested that he’d seen it too, or perhaps had even left it there precisely for the purpose of escape.

It was less than sixty feet away and most of the people between them and the water looked to be civilians.  _The Spanish Fucking Warship_  was obscured by its own cannon smoke as it engaged the blockade in the water, but Flint knew it was exactly another three hundred metres out and that there was no way to get to it without putting their backs to the jetty.  He was wondering how badly the manacles would impact his and Charles’ rowing speed when a cannon ball whistled past, biting into the building behind him and knocking Peter’s daughter to the dirt and forcing him to duck the resulting debris. He had just helped pull Abigail back up on to her feet when he heard her call out a warning. Whirling around, he was able to raise his sword just in time to parry the attack of a dark haired, compact militiaman.

Vane was also fighting off a new attacker as Flint parried another blow, but the man kept coming, wild with rage. Instinctively taking it as a personal affront— _you think **you’re** angry?_—Flint went on the offensive, driving the man backward with aggressive sword strikes until he had backed him up against a wooden cage containing half a dozen African slaves. As two of the men at the front of the enclosure grasped onto Flint’s attacker, holding him back against the wooden bars of their prison, Flint drove his sword deep into the man’s abdomen, teeth grit and eyes flashing as he watched him redden and swell with pain. The soldier was still coming to terms with his imminent demise when Flint yanked his sword back out of him and used it to hack the bolted chains off the cage, freeing the men inside, who immediately rushed an armed battalion coming in behind the pirate Captains and the girl.

Charles had also dispatched his opponent by then and was urging them onward, firing at and dropping a man on the dock as they raced up the wooden steps of it together, Abigail close at heel. Flint felt better the moment he jumped into the boat, even though there were still a hundred ways to die before reaching the ship. Vane was helping Abigail embark as he unmoored the small vessel, and then the two captains took the oars together, one on either side of the seat as Abigail crouched low by their feet, watching the receding dock anxiously. She whimpered but managed not to scream when shot exploded across the boat’s stern gunwale, fired from the ramparts by sentries as Rhett’s men loaded the canons…


	12. XII: ABIGAIL

✕ Written by [Meglifluous](http://missabigailash.tumblr.com/) ✕

First there was fear. Then elation. Then anxiety so acute the girl was close to hyperventilating.

They were heading back to the ship.

She was not alone in her fear, although the Captains didn’t show it. They rowed bravely, resolutely, hands still bound and teeth grit, never slowing their pace, not even after a cannonball shot from the town ramparts hurled into the water a hair’s breadth from their small craft. Huddled by their booted feet, staying low so as not to be torn apart by shot, she knew they were afraid only because there was no conceivable way for them not to be. They were all essentially defenseless, trapped on the water between two worlds, under heavy fire. They had nothing between themselves and certain death but speed and determination.

But then it seemed that that would be enough after all; that, and their allies, the brotherhood of pirates. Abigail heard a whistle, high and shrill, though whether it came from the rowboat or the warship she wasn’t sure. It was a signal though, and in response to it the Spanish warship fired its canons over their small boat, blowing the jetty ramparts behind them to smithereens, annihilating their enemies, saving them.

 _Billy_.

Still kneeling on the boards of the jolly, Abigail sat up slowly and peered over Captain Vane’s shoulder. She couldn’t see anything through the canon smoke—a dense, oily fog that made her eyes water as her long lashes blinked rapidly—but she felt the shadow of the ship fall over them as they rowed nearer.  _The Spanish Fucking Warship_ , that’s what Mr. McGraw called it. A slight, shy smile flickered across Abigail’s face as butterflies swarmed in her stomach. The terror, the blood, the murder…it had all been worth it. It had brought her back to  _him_. 

Vane jumped to his feet the second the bow of the small boat kissed the massive ship, urging Abigail up a series of horizontal planks fitted against the side of the ship like a ladder. As she began to climb toward the rub rail, anxiety set in. The slats were wet, slippery, and narrow, but tumbling off the side of the warship and plunging into the bay seemed almost desirable when she remembered the other thing she’d left behind on Flint’s ship.

That wicked journal. She’d put it right into his beautiful hands. Why!? Why in god’s name had she done such a foolish thing!? If he’d read those back pages…

Abigail froze in mid-climb, unable to continue. Her knees were shaking and she had started to breathe in short, shallow pants when Captain Vane, behind her, urged her on with an impatient grunt. With numb hands and breath held, Abigail made it up to the outwale, where a strong, male hand reached down for hers.

She knew the second she took it.

She could  _feel_  it.

Then all at once she was standing in front of him, her hand still in his, cheeks as pink as her face was pale, pupils so blown her brown eyes looked black, trying to find voice enough to say hello, to speak his name, when all of a sudden his expression went feral and a pistol appeared in his free hand. For a split second, Abigail thought he meant to put her out of her misery, but then she realized that his beautiful blue eyes weren’t on her. Turning as if in a dream to look over her shoulder, she saw that it was Captain Vane he meant to end.

Abigail let go of the boatswain’s hand and backed up until she was in front of her former captor, arms flung wide as if to make a wall between him and Billy. She had forgotten, until that moment, the splinters of glass and wood that had embedded themselves in her left arm during one of the explosions. Physical discomfort broke over her like a wave, her eyes still stinging from the smoke, her feet pinched and raw inside the small, utterly impractical shoes a maid had helped her into in the governor’s mansion that very morning. 

And her heart…dear god, how her heart hammered in her chest.

“Oh, no! Oh,  _please_  don’t! He saved the Captain! And myself! We’ve come through it together!”

She felt more than saw Captain Flint climbing onto the ship behind Vane, felt Vane standing stock still behind her, though what he meant to do, she couldn’t guess. If he were to hurt Billy, or Billy were to hurt him…

“We musn’t betray the brotherhood!” she pleaded, eyes never leaving Billy’s face. “There’s so many of  _them_ , and so few of  _us_! Billy,  _please_!”

Somewhere behind her, Captain Flint’s boots thudded back on to the deck of his ship. There were other men there, working around them—securing the jolly, manning their stations—and still more behind Billy—bound hand and foot, seated, seething, by the main mast—but for Abigail there were only three: the man who had invited her into his plan to save the pirate brotherhood, giving her a critical role to play; the man who had put a weapon into her hand and instructed her in its use; and the man she had secretly pledged her heart to, to whom she had risked everything to return.

Three men on the deck, each with blood on their hands and murder in their eyes; three men who would decide her future, and each of them, more or less, strangers….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ends _Charleston; Meet Charles,_ but the story doesn't end here!
> 
> This roleplay will continue with new authors for Billy Bones ([Beatrice3030](http://archiveofourown.org/users/beatrice3030/pseuds/beatrice3030)/ [BosunBillyBones](http://bosunbillybones.tumblr.com)) and John Silver ([Silverfunposts](http://silverfunposts.tumblr.com)) aboard the _Spanish Fucking Warship_ , further diverging from show canon with the addition of dear Abigail to the perfect storm aboard the Man o' War.
> 
> This saga will be called _All Hands On Deck_ , and will be able to be followed on our roleplay blogs on Tumblr, though it will eventually no doubt be uploaded here. 
> 
> Thank you **so** much for reading, and we would be overjoyed to hear any and all thoughts you might have on this!


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